
Belichick Stresses 'I' in Leadership
No one believes in T-E-A-M more than B-I-L-L Belichick. But even he apparently knows it has its limits. Midway through delivering the keynote address yesterday at the opening of a...
BostonJonathan Bernhardt, Sports on Earth
Peter King, Sports Illustrated
Steve Buckley, Boston Herald
Peter May, New York Times
Steve Buckley, Boston Herald

At the end of the 2009 season, David Ortiz faced a crossroads. Barely removed from four consecutive seasons finishing in the top four in voting for the American League MVP (though...(full article)

Considering what a transcendent talent Tom Brady is, the career he's had, and that he turns 36 in 11 weeks, this statement he made to me over the weekend is significant: "Going in...(full article)

The hockey experts got this one right. Man, did they ever. They said this Bruins-Rangers Eastern Conference semifinal was going to be one of those nail-biting, could-go-either-...(full article)

There are flecks of gray in Jaromir Jagr’s playoff beard. He turned 41 three months ago, and he is the only player in the Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Bo...(full article)

Whatever happens from here on out, it’s important that we take some time — and that we do it now, while the memories are still fresh — to put last night’s ...(full article)


No one believes in T-E-A-M more than B-I-L-L Belichick. But even he apparently knows it has its limits. Midway through delivering the keynote address yesterday at the opening of a...

The secret trick that led to accusations of Boston Red Sox starter Clay Buchholz throwing a spitball has an ancillary benefit: It prevents skin cancer, too. Two veteran pitchers an...

Brace yourself, because this is going to get complicated. The first thing to understand is that Kevin Garnett holds the key to the Celtics' offseason. The second thing to understa...

Because who doesn't love an underdog, I've cleared my calendar and chucked every other column possibility early this week to make time for two clubs that entered this season as a...

It's still early in the baseball season, as every stathead (including myself) will tell you over and over and over until it's not early anymore, but so far one of the very best st...

Last call on Causeway Street. The end of a game. The end of a season. The end of an era. The Celtics came back from a 26-point deficit in the fourth quarter — cutting the ma...

Kevin Millar knows plenty about a team coming back from a 3-0 series deficit. And the former Boston star can see some parallels between what he and his Red Sox teammates did to t...

This is no game in Chump Town on Friday night, the place where the idea was hatched for the Knicks to show up in black because, look out, they were going to bury the Boston Celti...

Thanks to accusations from Toronto broadcasters and former pitchers Dirk Hayhurst and Jack Morris, Boston pitcher Clay Buchholz has reignited an ageless debate about what constitut...

I love a good cheating accusation. I mean -- peanuts, hot dogs, hating the Yankees, pitching inside and cheating: Aren't they all a fundamental part of the game we love? Blue Ja...

It only took the Bruins 49 games to find themselves. One of the ancient axioms of hockey met its demise last night at the Garden. Turns out you can just flip a switch. &nbs...

NEW YORK – A season’s worth of work was supposed to prevent a night like this, was supposed to provide the Knicks with all the home comfort they would need for the fra...

There’s nothing like the paranoia of a Knicks fan, and maybe now you understand its source. In fact, it’s such a pervasive and ethereal thing, you probably spent Monday and T...

The Lakers are done for the season, and the Celtics could follow shortly. These traditional NBA kingpins have always been linked in the good times, so why should now be any diffe...

Yeah, no, nope, naw, not today. That's what the Boston Celtics said Sunday. This is not to say they are going to win this first-round playoff series against the New York Knicks. T...

It is only fitting the Boston Bruins fell to the Ottawa Senators on Sunday night, thereby ensuring the Beantowners will play the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the NHL ...

Though they get paid to hit home runs, shoot baskets, score goals, throw passes and so on, what do they owe us beyond that? To be sure, there’s an expectation that they will b...

BOSTON – See ya Wednesday. With J.R. Smith suspended and Carmelo Anthony failing to show up either, the Knicks failed to sweep the Celtics. Everyone but Anthony stepped up in Sm...

BOSTON—The time of death? Probably around 1:42 of the first half. That was when Knicks guard Jason Kidd stood beyond the 3-point line and, with little more than a flick of the w...

Edwin "La Bomba" Rodriguez, Massachusetts super middleweight contender, sparred with Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years ago. "Today I find out he's a terrorist and one of the Boston Mara...

At some point, we’re going to have to write off the Boston Celtics as a group that just can’t hang with the best teams in the NBA. Is it now? When Carmelo Anthony drove right ...

The Knicks didn’t finish off the Celtics at a raucous Garden on Tuesday night. But it sure seemed that way. The Knicks are up 2-0 after their 87-71 romp, so they’ve me...

Two hours earlier, they had assassinated MIT police officer Sean Collier, and now the vile little maggots were coming for more cops. It was about 12:45 on Friday morning, and a ha...

After a marathon that danced with joy and ended in horror, surely we see what sports can mean to a city. By now, after pregame tributes marked by an anthem singer's fist pumps an...

So, it seems, pop star Shakira got it wrong. Apparently, hips really do lie. Mike Napoli is living proof. Diagnosed in December with avascular necrosis, a degenerative — and sin...

We’re just three weeks into the 2013 baseball season, barely more than 10 percent of the way through, but already we’re seeing some unexpected performances that could prove t...

LONDON -- It was a beautiful, uneventful event. The only distress evident on runners' faces in Sunday's London Marathon was the normal kind, from cramps or blackened toenails or a...

Imagine the thousands of parents, throughout New England and beyond, taking a collective deep breath during the weekend as they sat down their children and said, “Yes, I kno...

I can't think of a better way to describe the events at Fenway Park on Saturday than simply to point out that it was so moving that the head of the freaking Federal Communications...

BOSTON -- The morning after, nearing 11 a.m.: A family rides the Green Line to Kenmore, the two little girls with pigtails touched up with Red Sox barrettes. The dad is wearing a ...

BOSTON—When they are successful, the Boston Bruins are a delightful team to argue about. Do they win because they are one of the best puck-possession teams in the NHL, with d...

On Monday, Shalane Flanagan ran her first Boston Marathon in front of a rollicking hometown crowd, finishing fourth in 2:27:08. It was a slow, tactical race, and Flanagan, stickin...

In so many ways, sports can bring out the worst in us. The corruption. The greed. The destructive belief that winning isn't just the only thing, but something that must be achi...

The Red Sox connect generations -- that, we understand. They connect a community, too. They do this in ways outsiders sometimes can't comprehend. After all, aren't they just a ...

BOSTON -- The enduring routine that distinguishes big league baseball from other sports and comforts the game's participants will return to Fenway Park on Saturday afternoon follo...

Our recipe for success for Carmelo Anthony, the newly minted scoring champ and long-time playoff flop, when the Knicks start the playoffs Saturday: 1. Keep your head when you meet ...

There will always be differing opinions on what makes for must-see TV, but now that the 2013 NFL schedule is ours for the anticipating, here are the 17 games in the league's 17-w...

Nine games into the 2011-12 season, on the heels of a less-than-inspiring loss to the Dallas Mavericks, Celtics coach Doc Rivers gave us one of the earliest hints that his team now...

If they didn't already have baseball's highest prices, the Red Sox might have been able to get away with charging extra when they come home Monday night to play the Chicago White...

In one of the most famous scenes in 20-plus years of “The Simpsons,” hapless villain Sideshow Bob steps on a rake, which whacks him in the face. Then he turns and ste...

If there is anything we have learned from the first six games of the Eastern Conference finals that will absolutely carry over into Game 7 tonight, it is that nothing we have lea...

A century’s worth of players have passed through Fenway Park, a living, pulsating artifact, where history seeps through the emerald walls. Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harpe...

It might be the iconic moment of Boston's playoff run. Heck, it might even be the wallpaper on the desktop behind your browser window. In the final minute of Boston's Game 5 victo...

After defeating the Heat in Game 5 Tuesday night, the Celtics [team stats] had the opportunity to take their talents to South Beach. Yesterday, they packed up and headed back to B...

They aren't likely to loosen their grip now. They just aren't. They aren't given to such surrender, because the Boston Celtics – featuring a veteran Big Three band of forwa...

It was growing confidence, too, which should give pause to anyone who might be tempted to think that was a kill shot the home team delivered in overtime of Wednesday night's 115-...

A friendlier crowd will be waiting with open hearts and hopes, anxious to see if this era can provide one final prideful home stand. If Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce c...

After last night’s game, Danny Ainge stopped Joe Borgia, the NBA’s officiating supervisor, in an attempt to get an explanation for the clear-path foul call against Mic...

The Celtics [team stats] we saw during Monday night’s Eastern Conference finals Game 1 loss to the Miami Heat weren’t the Celtics we heard afterward. The latter lads we...

Rajon Rondo [stats] is often viewed as the Celtics [team stats] catalyst. “Oh man, that’s a lot of pressure,” Rondo said yesterday. But the statement’s spot...

You know those games where it’s said that it’s a shame one team had to lose? Well, this wasn’t one of them. The Celtics [team stats] had a chance to end the Easte...

If it's true that it's harder to forget the worst losses than it's easier to remember the best victories, then this is one game that Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen -- n...

Paul Pierce [stats], on his way to a 22-point, 11-rebound game, slashed to the basket midway through the fourth quarter last night and spun in a reverse finger roll off the glas...

Kevin Garnett insists with dagger looks and sharp rejoinders that his game has not changed of late. He takes such suggestions as insults, and says this is simply the way he has b...

Josh Beckett does not do contrition, which is fine. But if he expects Red Sox [team stats] fans not to tee off on him after he tees off on his day off, he’d best do a lot bet...

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady spent time with teammate Wes Welker last weekend at the Kentucky Derby. Between the schmoozing and excitement of horse racing, Brady sh...

They didn’t have a timeout, and though they had a foul to give on the last play, the Celtics [team stats] didn’t use it. Execution hasn’t often been a problem for...

Doc Rivers' late father had three words of advice/encouragement, words that have served the son well in his NBA career as a player and coach. "Finish the race." Doc never did fin...

On Jan. 18, Rajon Rondo fell hard on his wrist in a game against the Raptors and missed the next eight games. His injury couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Celtics,...

Dale Hunter gushed about it: a Game 7 for the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night at the Boston Bruins with a trip to the second round on the line. “You’ve got to pr...

“Stuff happens in the playoffs,” Karl Alzner said Wednesday, after the Washington Capitals were done banging the puck around at Kettler Iceplex. Oh yes, stuff does. Lo...

As the NBA trade deadline lurched into its final hour a month ago, league sources say the call Ray Allen long feared had come: Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers was on the line, tell...

Nicklas Backstrom scored 2:56 into the second overtime Saturday to give the Washington Capitals a 2-1 victory over the Boston Bruins and tie the first-round playoff series at a g...

The Boston Bruins are going to have a chance to defend their title after clinching a spot in the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Here is a look at some reasons why the Bruins will be...

For well over a month now, the Bruins [team stats] have often rationalized some of the tough games they’ve had by saying they’re facing desperate teams. Well, now they&...

As the NBA trade deadline was nearing the last couple of weeks, Kevin Garnett would stop Danny Ainge and deliver a simple message. “Don’t trade me for a bag of chips,&r...

Cleveland, Milwaukee, New Jersey and New York — each one an inhabitant of the NBA’s middle earth — fell in grand fashion to the Celtics [team stats]’ post-A...

On a campus filled with future Obamas and Zuckerbergs, the coolest title in Cambridge these days belongs to Brandyn Curry. He's Harvard's starting point guard. While the position ...

Jermaine O’Neal is considering a number of options regarding his injured left wrist and season-ending surgery is one of them. O’Neal, who hasn’t played since Feb....

The Celtics have four good players on their roster (KG, Allen, Pierce, Rondo), and only one of them (Rondo) is in his prime. The other three are on the wrong side of 34. Only one...

The Celtics have four good players on their roster (KG, Allen, Pierce, Rondo), and only one of them (Rondo) is in his prime. The other three are on the wrong side of 34. Only one...

With the NBA's best record, the Bulls know they can beat anybody. Still, there are moments in any season where statements must be made. And, having dropped five of their last six ...

The Pacers have lost six of eight to drop to 18-12, ceding that “feel-good threat to Miami and Chicago” status to Philadelphia and falling to a point where New York, ...

One of the first thoughts that go into the heads of all 30 teams that don't make the Super Bowl is this: "How do we copy what the two teams did to get us there next season?" When...

Ruslan Fedotenko caught it Tuesday night, sitting in the TD Garden press box in his suit, rising to cheer as his otherworldly Rangers teammate, Henrik Lundqvist, preserved a 3-0 sh...

Pierce passed Bird with the third quarter’s first shot — a 3-pointer, naturally — and the Celtics briefly flirted with a 20-point lead without quite getting the...

2011 in a Nutshell: From field level, as well as the catwalk at Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday night, I saw Tom Brady feel the pressure in Super Bowl XLVI. The pressure to do a bit to...

I hate to say I told you so, but… Indianapolis knocked it out of the park as host city for Super Bowl XLVI by most accounts…be it NFL executives, fans, corporate typ...

The New England Patriots decided not to contest the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl on Sunday. The Giants almost did not accept the gift. One day after one of the strangest to...

Two weeks of polishing the NFL legends of Eli Manning and Tom Brady into modern gunslinger monuments might have seemed prudent for an unprecedented collision of Super Bowl MVPs, ...

Tom Coughlin isn’t going anywhere. Let’s finally come to grips with that, okay? Fifty days ago, when the Giants suffered a second embarrassing loss to the Washington Re...

For all the pomp and excess of Madonna's Super Bowl halftime show, it is likely to be a single extended middle finger by guest singer M.I.A. that is most remembered. The gesture,...

No one could blame Tom Brady for his one, foolish heave. All he saw was Rob Gronkowski open and deep. Gronk, the best tight end in football, the 6-foot-6 freak with hands bigger a...

Wes Welker was targeted eight times by Tom Brady in Super Bowl XLVI. He caught seven passes. But it's the one he didn't catch that will stay with him for a long time. "It's one of ...
It's a pretty select club Eli Manning joined here Sunday night. You could almost call it an "elite'' membership to belong to. Quarterbacks with multiple Super Bowl wins have a cac...

Are the 2011 New England Patriots better than the 2007 team that was minutes away from perfection, only to have history taken from them in Super Bowl XLII? How about t...

On a few random occasions this week, as the intensity of the Super Bowl media crush swarmed around her younger brother during his preparations for the biggest game in American sp...
CHICAGO -- For the first time in his career, Jonny Gomes isn't worried about nex...
CHICAGO -- Playing in Bill Murray’s hometown, Shane Victorino...
BALTIMORE — Vernon Wells doubled in the tiebreaking run in the 10th inning and the New York Yan...
CHICAGO — When Jon Lester took the mound last night, he was trying to become the first Red Sox ...
The Bruins’ 5-2 victory over the New York Rangers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinal...